Ballots to remain uncounted in MI and Stein blocked in Philly. Guest: Election integrity, law expert Paul Lehto says this proves 'only option is to get it right on Election Night'. Also: Trump taps climate denier, fossil-fuel tool for EPA...

Charging that Congressman Rush Holt's (D-NJ) Election Reform bill (HR 811) "does not address the concerns that Americans have, to do something about electronic voting," Ohio's Rep. Dennis Kucinich reiterated his withdrawal of support for the controversial legislation last Friday.

In an interview on the Peter B. Collins show, the Democratic presidential candidate confirmed earlier reports that he intended to drop his co-sponsorship of the bill in favor of requiring paper ballots for American elections. HR 811, as currently written, fails to ban dangerous electronic touch-screen (DRE) voting systems.

Last week, Election Integrity advocates announced a new effort to contact Congress members in order to learn their position on the Holt bill, and whether or not they would support such a ban. They are asking for help from the public in contacting all members of the U.S. House. (More details on the effort, and how you can help, below.)

"I'm hopeful that Congressman Holt will modify his bill before he pushes for passage of it," Kucinich told host Peter B. Collins during a short interview late Friday.

Here's the short audio of the exchange concerning the Holt Bill [less than 2 mins]:

Here's the transcript of the exchange:

PETER B. COLLINS: You have recently removed yourself as a co-sponsor of 811, am I correct?

KUCINICH: I have. Rush Holt's a fine person and I really enjoy serving with him. But I have to say, the bill does not address the concerns that Americans have, to do something about electronic voting, and to make sure that we protect ourselves from the kind of manipulation of an election that can occur with the insufficient controls on software and hardware in this era of electronic voting.

That's why I've advocated paper ballots in all federal elections. That's the paper trail. That's that old time religion in politics where at least you had a chance for a fair count. Every American deserves to know that his or her vote counts and is going to be counted.

And you may remember that in the last election, when it came to the Electoral College, I was one of the few members who challenged the election in the Electoral College and voted against certification of the election based on what happened in Ohio. As did, by the way, Senator [Barbara] Boxer [D-CA], she was one of the leaders on that.

PBC: Indeed, yes...

KUCINICH: And so, we have to stand up and be counted. I'm hopeful that Congressman Holt will modify his bill before he pushes for passage of it.

Kucinich had originally announced his intention to drop his co-sponsorship of the bill last month when asked about it by Election Integrity advocates during a phone appearance at DemocracyFest in New Hampshire. The Ohio Congressman's name is still listed as a co-sponsor, along with 215 others, on the Library of Congress website, but The BRAD BLOG has been told by a source familiar with the LOC's Thomas database that co-sponsorship lists on that site are no longer updated after bills have been introduced and then voted out of committee...

Holt's bill was successfully voted out of committee in May, after undergoing a number of changes that removed additional safeguards written into the original bill, such as full disclosure of all source code for voting systems. The amended version now allows only for review of source code by so-called "experts" under restrictive non-disclosure agreements. The bill has been pending a vote on the floor of the U.S. House ever since. Last week, Holt said in a radio interview that he was hopeful the bill would be scheduled for a vote during the first two weeks of July.

In the last Congress, Kucinich had introduced a bill to require all hand-counted paper ballots in presidential elections. He has said he intends to re-introduce the measure in the current Congress.

Election Integrity advocates have decried the bill on a number of counts, charging that it does not go far enough towards ensuring accuracy and security of voting systems. Many Election Officials around the country have also expressed their concerns about the bill, but for different reasons. They fear the bill's requirements are too onerous and may force them to change recently purchased voting systems, despite the many problems revealed in those very systems.

Supporters of the bill have claimed that legislation requiring a ban on touch-screen DRE systems could not pass in the Democratically-controlled Congress, even though a similar ban on such voting systems was recently passed by the Republican-controlled House and Senate in the state of Florida. Supporters making the claim have failed to present evidence to back it up and have, as of yet, failed to offer the name of a single Congressional member who supports the bill now, but who would withdraw his or her support if the bill were amended to include a ban on DRE voting systems.

An effort is now being mounted by Philadelphia Election Integrity advocate and radio host of Voice of the Voters Mary Ann Gould, along with Joan Brunwasser of OpEdNews.com to contact Congress members in order to get them on record concerning their position on a DRE ban and the Holt bill in general. They are asking for your help in contacting Congress members. More information on that campaign is available here.

"...The amended version now allows only for review of source code by so-called "experts" under restrictive non-disclosure agreements..."

So bizarre one must wonder about the motivation...this would provide us with a priesthood whose words we must accept without a murmer...the very opposite of transparency...

Examining code is of no use for ensuring the absence of bugs and malware - see, eg, Neumann [below]. But it can be productive; in the FL-13 post-election analyses some good things to know about the code were found.

Prof.Neumann, of SRI, for those who haven't heard of him, is one of the world's leading computer scientists, chair of the Ass'n of Computing Machinery's "Risk" section, long ago said:

"Even if you can look at the source code, you can't guarantee that there's not a Trojan horse embedded somewhere in the code. Any self-respecting system programmer can hack the innards of the system to defeat encryption techniques or any password protection, or anything like that. All this stuff is trivial to break, for the most part. In most computer systems out there, it is child's play. Given the fact that the underlying systems are so penetrable, it is relatively easy to fudge data-for example, to start out with three thousand votes for one guy and zero for the other before the counting even starts, even though the counter shows zero. Essentially a Trojan horse in the coding. I can do it in the operating system. I can do it in the application program. Or I can do it in the compiler. I can rig it so that all test decks work perfectly well....”

That will eliminate the need for another "Maxine Waters" having to turn in the Electoral Count to Al Gore, without "One Senator's Signature" and then this long roller coaster of the complete destruction of our constitutional republic from the inside out by the oath of office breakers.

It is so telling that we as a nation can have machines controlled by software operating thruout the solar system, and doing a very scientific and competent job; we can have DRE ATM's doing a competent job at banks; and have computers flying aircraft competently.

But we can't put machines to work in elections because there is not enough honesty in america for that to happen.

Face it, either we have faith that election officials are honest or we don't.

The call for the complete use of paper ballots is an indicator of our lack of faith in the honesty of our government.

It is a hard pill to swallow, but we simply need to take our medicine until we get well. But we won't.

I will try calling tomorrow morning. 7am + 4hrs is what 11am in DC... Although I guess I could try at 3Am here.

Boxer, Feinstein, and Pelosi

I wonder what to do if they don't want to ANSWER?!

asking only a few essential questions:
1. Do you want DREs (touch-screen voting technology) to be banned from our elections?
2. Would you support legislation that mandates their banning in time for the 2008 election?
3. If the answer to #2 is no, would you support legislation that mandates their banning by 2010?
These get you to the Capitol switchboard. Then ask for any House or Senate office.

Long distance provider Working Assets, which has for years advocated progressive causes, has announced support for HR 811. In a mass email sent out to its Flash Activist Network members today, it asks for each of us to contact his or her Representative and express support for this bill.

Thanks to The BRAD BLOG I was on top of this issue. I sent FAN an email that confronts the misleading claim of this Flash Activist Alert:

If passed, this bill will prevent the use of paperless electronic voting machines, and will require audits to check the accuracy of the vote counts for federal elections. H.R. 811 includes security provisions that ban Internet connections for voting machines, as well as for systems that tabulate the votes on election night.

I included in the message links to the Kucinich story and to the Special Report page here.

I don't know what good this will do. In the years I've been a FAN member I've never seen them withdraw an alert.

It's hard when a well-meaning organization moves on an issue it has not researched quite well enough.

Much of the loss of trust in government is because the bushie regime is corrupt and criminal. And it was put in place originally by the Supreme Court, not the people.

One quarter-century-tenured US Attorney put it this way:

They also underscore Congress' lack of wisdom in blindly trusting the administration, largely rubber-stamping its legislative proposals, and essentially abandoning the congressional oversight function for most of the last six years. These are, after all, the same leaders who brought us the WMD fiasco, the unnecessary and disastrous Iraq war, Guantanamo, Abu Ghraib, warrantless domestic NSA surveillance, the Valerie Wilson leak, the arrest of Brandon Mayfield, and the Katrina response failure. The last thing they deserve is trust.